Dictionary.net

A popular, distributed form of peer-to-peerfile sharing that enables a client program to fetchdifferent parts of a file (a "torrent") from different sourcesin parallel. The system is designed to encourage users tomake downloaded data available for others to upload. This isaided by a scheme for exchanging unique identifiers, commonlystored in ".torrent" files. A downloader who does not servedata to others is called a "leech". A "seed" is a computerthat has a complete copy of a file, possibly the original.The bittorrent.com site claims there are over 100 millionusers as of 2007-03-24.Most of the data is copyright material like films orcommercial software. (http://www.bittorrent.com/what-is-bittorrent).